Aug 21, 2009 | Recent Posts, Signs I Like
A prime example of nails and rust used as secondary visual element © Iskra Johnson 2009
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I think of August as a field of back-lit hay, as faded cornflowers and delphiniums swaying in the wind and giving up their last petals. It is a month of exhaustion. The dogs are tired. The flowers are tired. The people too are tired, and I think they go to Echo Lake to take a long nap. This wonderfully bleak sign hangs next to a while-you-wait denture office just south of the tattoo parlor and north of the Drift On Inn, where you can play poker with the last of your IRA or have the lettuce and a pickle lunch special on Thursdays. Why not do both, especially if you are on a fixed income.
Exactly what do these strange puzzle pieces indicate? Is that a cluster of houses on the upper right? Where is the Lake? Perhaps the whole point is to let my imagination improve on the situation. Perhaps better that I don't know the lake is behind the Costco, that just before putting on your goggles and diving under you can hear cars gunning at the discount gas and people fighting each other for a parking place, that you're never sure if that is a beer can or a woman's shoe glinting underwater.
As I took this photo wind chimes knocked together in the afternoon heat. Tucked into a broken downspout a bouquet of weeds tied in faded ribbon thanked me for stopping by.
Jul 29, 2009 | Found Alphabets & Street Poetry, Recent Posts, Signs I Like
From Aaron Zube, friend and collaborator in San Francisco. A universal symbol set that carries its message effectively in large, medium and small. I just want to know why there are no double scoops. Since San Francisco is experiencing winter fogs and clammy temperatures, this image sequence may have been utilized as part of a shamanistic ritual to reinstall the sun. Trade you Seattle's 101 degrees for whatever wistful autumnal breezes you've got down there!
Tonight someone set fire to an island in the middle of a little lake that the fire engines can't get to and as far as the eye can see the sky is filled with pink smoke. I found out the cause of the fire while having a jamocha ice cream cone at Baskin & Robbins…. For new prints on the theme of The Ice Cream Man, or "meditations on desire," see new work at Iskra Fine Art.
Jul 14, 2009 | Signs I Like |
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A traveler to Afghanistan sent me this somewhat foreboding signage from a bus in Kabul. The handling of the brush is earnest and ambitious — especially in juxtaposition with the second line, which appears to be a radical version of Taped-Off Gothic Bold. The way the words run together in the third line suggests a certain breathless anxiety to get to the finish line. If this was painted on the side of the #9 Broadway I'm not sure I would get on.
Jul 2, 2009 | Signs I Like
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This wildly expressive sign advertises a nursery tucked between a metal shop and an auto mechanic in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood. Anarchy, flower-power, deeply retro color, it all works as an organic whole. I especially like the little roots coming off the bottom of the stems.
This came to me from Jeff Lacoste of Design Heavy. Check out his exquisite letterpressed label for Coeur Cellars — a great use of Copperplate with original watercolor.
Jun 30, 2009 | Found Alphabets & Street Poetry
Travels: San Francisco, Utah, and home to Seattle’s airport parking lot with its beautiful guiding arrow. Please, shuttle driver, don’t run me over, this is important!
Designer, calligrapher, lettering artist. 